Currently, most organizations maintain one or more email servers, or contract with a service company that provides email server access. Email servers transport email both between members of the organization (e.g., corporate employees, university students and faculty, etc.) and between members of the organization and external email senders/receivers. Employees (or other organization members) use email clients running on their computing devices (e.g., desktop computers, laptop computers, smartphones, etc.) to access their emails. Examples are Microsoft Outlook on a Windows based PC or the iPhone mail client. Some parties use web-based email that directly accesses the mail server using a browser, however this is typically used to access email from a third party's computer, and exclusive use of web-based email clients is atypical.
A significant portion of an organization's stored information is in the form of email. This information can be in the body of emails, metadata concerning emails and/or files attached to emails. Information of interest can be explicit, such as content of emails and attachments, as well as records of sent what to whom at what time and the like. In addition, desired information can be in the form of implicit data that can be inferred from email content and history, such as the identity of specific parties with familiarity with a particular topic.
Conventionally, information embedded within an email message is only available to the sender and recipient of the message, or in some instances managers or email level administrators with the ability and authority to review the emails of others. This results in a situation in which most parties cannot leverage the information contained in the organization level email base, and to the extent to which this information can be accessed by a select few, the privacy of the email senders and recipients is not maintained.
Electronic communication messages within an organization in other formats (e.g., text messages, chat sessions, digitized voicemails, etc.) present similar challenges.
It would be desirable to address these issues.